Erdogan No Joke for Comedian as Cops Watch Turkey Satire

Demonstrators try to enter a courthouse as Turkish gendarmerie block the road in Silivri near Istanbul on April 8, 2013, where prosecutors are scheduled to deliver their final arguments in the case against 275 people accused of plotting to overturn the Islamic-leaning government. Photographer: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images

At the back of the audience, real policemen, not in
uniform, are monitoring the show, according to its organizers.
It deals with the Ergenekon trial, which may conclude today in
the town of Silivri near Istanbul, where security has been
stepped up as protesters gather.

“Policemen have repeatedly filmed the play,” Kirca said
in an interview before the July 24 show at an open-air theater
in the Aegean resort of Datca. “When they first came with their
video cameras, we were stunned and watched our language, but
this is the kind of pressure we’re resisting now.”

The Ergenekon case, in which generals, journalists,
academics and lawyers are accused of involvement in a coup plot,
has polarized Turkey. Erdogan’s party says it’s part of the
process of democratizing a country where the army has ousted
four elected governments since 1960. Opponents say it shows the
Islamist-rooted premier’s intolerance of dissent and the
widening net that authorities are using to catch critics.

Among about 275 suspects are former army chief Ilker Basbug
and Mustafa Balbay, a journalist-turned-lawmaker. Balbay, who’s
portrayed in the arrest scene of Kirca’s play, has been jailed
for more than four years pending the verdict.

Turkey has dropped to 154th on a press freedom index
compiled by Reporters Without Borders, from 99th in 2002 when
Erdogan’s party came to power.

Courtroom Barricaded

Kirca’s popular television skits have mocked political
leaders and the country’s former military rulers for 21 years.
He said he was forced off the air more than three years ago when
the government threatened to pull the broadcaster’s license. The
prime minister’s office declined to comment on that, while the
police declined to say whether they monitored the play.

As he performs the roles of a policeman, a general and a
judge, Kirca repeatedly calls for divine punishment for the
government, for making defenders of secularism suffer in
prisons. Each time, the audience of about 2,000 responds in
unison: “Amen!”

Six-Year Investigation

A verdict in the court case would be the culmination of a
six-year probe.

Security has been stepped up at Silivri, with two layers of
metal barricades protecting the judicial complex. Intelligence
reports suggest an attack has been planned on the court by a
militant Marxist group, the state-run Anatolia news agency
reported today. Officials have said that not even the
defendants’ family members will be allowed into the hearing.

Secularist groups who oppose the trial have called on
supporters to protest there. Armed paramilitary police have
blocked people from traveling to the court by bus or on foot,
said Tolga Emek, a local official of the main opposition party.
Hundreds were gathered outside the barricades waving flags,
television footage showed. Police used tear gas and some
protesters were arrested, Vatan newspaper said today.

‘All Political’

“They have been making a big fuss about it,” said Osman
Can, a member of the executive committee of Erdogan’s party, of
the trial’s critics. “They claim the coup plot is not a reality
and there is a government scheme against them. It’s all
political.”

A separate case, called “Sledgehammer,” resulted in the
conviction of about 330 officers last year. Together, the trials
have decimated the military leadership and virtually eliminated
its political influence.

The army’s waning power has been welcomed by international
organizations including the European Union. Questions have been
raised, though, by the EU and rights groups about the fairness
of the trial and the range of people implicated.

Concerns that Erdogan has widened the net for critics of
his government have intensified since street protests spread
through the country in June. Six people were killed and
thousands injured in a police crackdown.

Erdogan on June 16 accused the Koc family, which controls
Turkey’s biggest business group, of opening the doors of one of
its Istanbul hotels to protesters, and said they would “have to
account for it.” Tax inspectors and police raided Koc companies
a month later, causing the shares to slide, in a move that
officials including Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said was a
routine investigation.

Forgery Claims

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
ruled last month that the detentions in the Sledgehammer case
violated international law.

It cited lengthy pre-trial detentions, lack of presumption
of innocence, failure to present exculpatory evidence to the
defense or to allow it to call witnesses, and the court’s
refusal to appoint experts to assess the validity of evidence,
which some defendants say has been forged.

Metin Feyzioglu, head of the Union of Turkish Bar
Associations, says the special court hearing the Ergenekon trial
is a “legal monstrosity” that should have been abolished when
parliament voted to dissolve such courts in July 2012 because
they violate democratic principles. “The trial has been a
formality since the beginning, the verdict has already been
made,” he said in an Aug. 1 phone interview.

Can, the ruling-party official who’s also a former
rapporteur at the Constitutional Court, said any claims of
irregularities in the trial could be dealt with on appeal.

Two surviving leaders of a 1980 military coup, and generals
who forced the resignation of the country’s first Islamist prime
minister in 1997, have also been put on trial.

“The judiciary appears dominated by Erdogan’s appointees,
the press practices a considerable degree of self-censorship,”
Andrew Mango, author of seven books on Turkey, said in an e-mail
on June 12. “If his own party does not restrain him, it is
difficult to see who and what group will.”